Tag: short stories

All Stories

The Lobster That Wouldn’t Sleep by Tom Sheehan

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It had happened again and bright-eyed, thick-chested Judd Farro, half clad in the yellow foul weather gear of his trade, couldn’t remember how many times it had happened over the years. The sea, obviously, has its own rules and regulations, he thought, its own machinations, and you don’t really count on them. But here, in its own great mystery, the lobster with the bold X on its backside was caught anew in one of his traps, big as life, healthy, and as if daring to say Here I am again. The X was indelible, unmistakable, and struck him with an awed intensity.

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All Stories, General Fiction, Short Fiction

A Journey Begun In Lovers Meeting By JC Freeman

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Readers’ Advisory:

The Union of Pennames, Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters (UPIFFC) has gone on strike. The reasons for this are unclear, but there’s a bunch of them outside my office window at this very moment alternately singing We Shall Overcome and making unflattering chants that feature my name and the accusation of miserly behavior on my part: “SAY HEY FREEMAN/HOW ABOUT A FEE MAN.” Don’t blame me, I didn’t say these were good chants.

Anyway, my penname, Ms. Leila Allison, seems to be the brains of the outfit, which is the only good news I have to report. Until she either gets bored with this rebellious activity, or the situation is in some other way resolved, I am forbidden to use the alias. Until that time, however, the show must go on.

Yours Truly,

JC Freeman

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All Stories, Latest News, Short Fiction

Week 109 – Addictions, Jaffa Cakes And a Shoe With No Name

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I’ve been wondering this week about how addictive writing is.

Addiction comes in many forms. I have one brother-in-law who is addicted to Dysons and the other is addicted to Jaffa Cakes. It’s hysterical when they get together as one pisses off the other as there are never any crumbs to hoover up.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Running by William R. Soldan

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I was so used to being scared and running by then, I don’t know, guess I just always seen it coming. We spent a lot of years running, Ma and me. Start out seeking something better, that life we never had, just to hightail it in the night when that life went and turned its teeth on us.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Country Living by Frederick K Foote

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Country living, living in nature’s bountiful bosoms, being a country girl, pastoral delights and splendid nights with stars shining bright.

Don’t, just don’t shovel that hot, rancid, fly infested, maggot breeding horseshit in my direction. I been there and done that. I sat on that milk stool. I swam in that polluted pool. I slept on the straw mattress with the rats and fleas. I churned butter, collected eggs, slopped the hogs, fed the chickens, shoveled the shit, planted the garden, weeded the rows, gathered the crops, canned, and sewed.

And, I cooked, cleaned, snapped beans, made beds and did the laundry in my spare time.

My country, the country that I lived in, was more than a place in space and time it was an evil disposition of heart and mind.

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All Stories, General Fiction

Out in the Turkey Pen By Leila Allison

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Reader Advisory:

The Union of Pennames, Imaginary Friends and Fictional Characters (UPIFFC) now requires the anonymous employer of an associate penname to give the latter a yearly performance review. This event usually occurs in the sort of establishment where the wait staff all have the personalities of unpurged butter clams. As it goes with PR’s throughout the observable universe, the employer typically leads off with the employee’s strong points as a method of Trojan-horsing in darker observations. Sadly, for the employer, the penname has access to each and every of the former’s thoughts while the employer remains as clueless about the penname’s wicked ways as ever. To put it plainly, the whole thing goes to hell from the get go, and the only thing that I as Leila Allison’s employer get from our conversation is a tingling headache and bewilderment over the fact that my alias has the social graces of an irked thirteen-year-old child.

However, I may have gained something useful from this year’s face-to-face. I now present the missive that my penname scrawled on a stack of cocktail napkins not long after she dropped the pretense of pretending to listen to me—But I’ll give her this much: she writes awfully damn fast. Unfortunately, my headache has prevented me from reading it; and it may also be true that I only wish for it to be known that I have had nothing to do with its construction, just in case it too goes to hell from the get go.

Respectfully,

Ms. Allison’s Employer

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All Stories, General Fiction

Hunger by Julie Howard

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Her fingers dripped with sticky syrup. A warm breeze blew in from her kitchen windows and she closed her eyes for a moment. One perfect moment. Opening her eyes, she sucked one finger after another, savoring the tart sweetness, then dipped one finger in the pot for one more taste. The plum jam was perfect, as she knew it would be.

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All Stories, General Fiction

What Grows in the Garden by Kathryn Lord

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The tiny clearing off to the side was cooler than the obscenely voluminous garden with its organized cacophony of colors – massed vermilions and oranges alongside indigos, violets, and fuchsias, eye-popping yellows and the occasional calm of white or cream.  Cedars bent over an exquisite pool, granite lined, with water more crystalline than glass.  Almost lost between moss-padded banks that nearly met, a miniscule stream fed the pool, dribbling over mammoth slate slabs stacked like pricey leather-bound books resting on deep emerald velvet.

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All Stories, General Fiction

After the Party by Andrew Miller

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Her chiming phone, the ring tone meant to be soothing, shattered their sleep. Alice sat straight up. “Yes-yes, what is it?”

It was Mrs. Johnson, two doors away. Her daughter had not returned from last night’s party at the beach. Did Keith know what beach? Could he go down there? It was almost light.

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